In 2015, the research group LEARN (Lifelong Learning, Education & Assessment Research Network) has been established to contribute to better healthcare by improving and advancing health professions education across the educational continuum from first-year health professions students to experienced professionals in the final stages of their careers. Since LEARN is strongly linked to both undergraduate and postgraduate activities, it serves as a resource to support best practice in educational program design and delivery within the UMCG and its affiliated teaching hospitals. LEARN aims to bring communities together and create a platform to share knowledge, expertise, experience, research findings and to learn from each other. 

The goal of this symposium is to interact, exchange research interests and results, share experiences with evidence-based education, discuss and debate strategy and policy issues and get to know each other better. So, we welcome all interested in medical and health professions education. The symposium will be a full-day event and the official language will be English.

We are pleased to announce that this symposium represents the collaboration of all teaching hospitals involved in postgraduate education in our region (OOR-NO). To celebrate the participation of the OOR-NO in the LEARN symposium, the joint directors of the teaching hospitals have endorsed an annual lecture by an international keynote speaker at this symposium. We are proud to announce that this lecture will bear the name of professor Rein Zwierstra, the first dean of Medical and Postgraduate Education at the UMCG. At the LEARN symposium 2018, the Rein Zwierstra lecture will be held by professor Lorelei Lingard from the Western University, Ontario, Canada.